THE PROMISE OF MOONLIGHT

I am on a motorbike with him and we cruise mountains
I am spellbound, transported by the vast orange groves of Crete which lay below.
I ponder my safety with this stranger
But it would have been stranger still, not to accept
The lift. And to deny myself the space to know
Myself. Moving through time
I love beyond the sea,
I see beyond the skies,
I love well beyond Earth’s well-trodden land.
I am witness to a journey that unfolds,
Meanders. I explore - willingly.

When will the moon reappear?
At night. Still
Through daylight, she lingers behind the sun and
Longs to animate the jasmine flower, at night.
The jasmine’s aromatic lust lingers as I ride and I wonder
If she, sweet jasmine, is ready to love again?
Ready, will she become- tonight- this night?
Empowered by moonlight, on this night and on a night-another, again and again –
And- a gain.
The jasmine flower believes she is a vine who can stretch across the galactic night sky and
Is ready - for anything.

Vines are ambitious in their stretch and their climb. They are ambitious, in love too.
Or does Jasmine know love so well, and know
That it is now, sheltered from days gone before, she is ready for love she knows too well?
Jasmine searches. Maybe, she is destined to search - continually?
There lies a grapevine underneath, intertwined, with the orange that points the way.
A grapevine. Underneath, intertwined with time and thee.
The orange grove with grape move within. They move, ride and sway -
Forever in time- intertwined. The moon becomes the sun, and the sun is I with thee.
Time, a strand lashes loud in daylight hours, creates a path, a way -
A pathway. For time-travel
Under the jasmine moon. She can never live in his shadow.

Jasmine moon rises as surely as if she knows her way
There is he, again, for the sun too will rise again
Two true.
The full moonlit portal of love, haze over mountain peaks
Is home to bright stars that promise love.
There is a golden hue, a golden glow, to this long-awaited evening love.
My head is full of jasmine
I am a Star Jasmine. My thick, 5-pointed petals
Are stars that sparkle against the jet black, night sky
An idealist’s love. He promises more than what daylight alone or a single lifetime
Can give.

The stranger speaks of love that stretches and crosses time
He has sweat that speaks clearly, he is luscious and delectable orange-sweet
His 5-dollar-a-day motorbike purrs, throwing dust and doubt together.
I choke.
Smoke from the valley’s distillery ignites the mountain air, stirs dust from on the ground
Asks mountain clay to become deities
To witness history in a way that binds hindsight and vision.
Meanwhile, low-lying birds take flight.
His talk of love unsettles me - I am dust, I am smoke
I am disturbed, discarded, dismayed
In total disarray. I
Take flight and do not know where to land.

Can love so heady, headstrong, be trusted - ever again?
With figure-of-clay in hand, I conjure the jasmine moon whom I do believe and trust.
She says that love is real.
I rest my hand on her radiant glow and she moves what is past
And I see passed rejection and fear.
A long-ago fear braved time and leapt high, over timelines- is an imposter, of love, she says.
Let it go, says Jasmine, let it go.
I trust
Jasmine. I do.
Her clear rich, velvet perfume knows time.
She knows me.

Light night, night time
Sun-stars dance
Around Jasmine’s presence and glow.
In the mirror of her moonlight, love descends upon me
It is real.
Love is promised, and is now here.
I land
I settle, I see
Clearly.
I know, I feel - as She.
Dust to dust.
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